Erosion of Law Could Cost Soil : Farming: Audit shows Agriculture Department weakened a program requiring growers to reduce loss of earth in order to receive subsidies.

Millions of dollars in government payments--as well as tons of topsoil--could be lost because the Agriculture Department weakened a strict conservation program in the late 1980s, an internal audit says.

The 1985 Farm Bill required farmers to combat erosion on vulnerable land if they wanted to keep receiving government support payments for their crops. Farmers were to use methods that kept erosion to a minimum.

But farmers applied pressure, saying that following the rules would cost too much. So the department promoted less burdensome “alternative conservation systems” that permitted more erosion, according to the audit by the department’s Office of Inspector General.

The systems are outlined in highly detailed technical guidebooks, the field office technical guides, that local conservation officials use to work out conservation plans with farmers.

According to the report, obtained by the Associated Press, the alternatives were developed even when it couldn’t be shown they were needed. Moreover, the alternatives didn’t always say how much soil loss would be allowed, or allowed losses far greater than average erosion.

“This allowed producers to maintain eligibility for U.S. Department of Agriculture benefits even though erosion reductions were not achieved,” the audit report said. But it gave no indication of what those losses have been or might be.

A soil loss limit of 20 tons an acre for all highly erodible land had been lifted in 1987, the report noted.

In Texas County, Okla., a system allows the loss of 55 tons of soil per acre each year, although a loss of more than five tons would eventually make the soil barren, the report said.

Tom Hebert, deputy assistant secretary of agriculture for natural resources, said the audit showed flaws in the technical guidebooks rather than the realities of conservation compliance.

“Farmers have opted to implement conservation systems that are by and large achieving much more erosion reductions than what would have occurred if they had implemented just what is on the books in those alternative conservation systems,” he said.

Nearly half the highly erodible acres examined by the Soil Conservation Service in 1993 were under conservation plans that brought erosion to or below the minimum rate needed to keep land productive over the years, he said.

When all plans are considered, the overall reduction is less than 1.5 times the minimum rate, a healthy number given the vulnerable soil in question, he said.

About 100 million highly erodible acres are in cultivation. Hebert said average annual erosion on those lands should be reduced from 17.5 tons per acre, the pre-1985 level, to six tons by the end of this year.

Ken Cook, head of the Environmental Working Group, said the lax guidelines make it possible for farmers to cut back on their conservation efforts without losing benefits.

“There are cases where the practice is bad based on the (alternative conservation systems) and where we squandered a lot of conservation just because of these policies,” said Cook, whose group is frequently critical of the department’s conservation policies.

The report said the alternative systems let farmers skip such important but inexpensive practices as farming along the contours of the land, growing crops in alternating strips, planting buffers, using conservation tillage, or even rotating crops.

In Sedgwick County, Colo., a system called for 75% of the crops planted to be the kind that leave soil-retaining residues after harvest. But it allowed for the residues to be destroyed, leaving no barrier against wind erosion, the report said.

The requirements to cut erosion were so inconsistent that in Doniphan County, Kan., soil losses were limited to 27 tons an acre. But in adjoining Buchanan County, Mo., losses for the same kind of soil were limited to eight tons.

The audits reviewed 17 counties in 10 states from November, 1992, through April, 1993.